Golf balls were originally made with smooth outer surfaces. However, in the late nineteenth century, players observed that gutta-percha golf balls traveled further as they aged and their surfaces were roughened. As a result, players began roughening the surfaces of new golf balls to increase flight distance; and manufacturers began molding non-smooth outer surfaces on golf balls.
By the mid 1900's almost every manufactured golf ball had 336 dimples arranged in an octahedral pattern. Generally, these balls had about 60 percent of their outer surface covered by dimples. Over time, improvements in ball performance were developed by utilizing different dimple patterns. In 1983, for instance, Titleist introduced the TITLEIST 384, which, not surprisingly, had 384 dimples that were arranged in an icosahedral pattern. With about 76 percent of its outer surface covered with dimples, the TITLEIST 384 exhibited improved aerodynamic performance. Today, dimpled golf balls travel nearly two times farther than similar balls without dimples.
The dimples on a golf ball play an important role in reducing drag and increasing lift. More specifically, the dimples on a golf ball create a turbulent boundary layer around the ball, i.e., a thin layer of air adjacent to the ball that flows in a turbulent manner. The turbulent nature of the boundary layer of air around the ball energizes the boundary layer, and helps the air flow stay attached farther around the ball. The prolonged attachment of the air flow around the surface of the ball reduces the area of the wake behind the ball, effectively yielding an increase in pressure behind the ball, thereby substantially reducing drag and increasing lift on the ball during flight.
As such, manufacturers continually experiment with different dimple shapes and patterns in an effort to improve the aerodynamic forces exerted on golf balls, with the goal of increasing travel distances of the balls. However, the United States Golf Association (USGA) requires that a ball must not be designed, manufactured, or intentionally modified to have properties that differ from those of a spherically symmetric ball. In other words, manufacturers who desire to better aerodynamic performance of a golf ball are also required to conform with the overall distance and symmetry requirements of the USGA. In particular, a golf ball is considered to achieve flight symmetry when it is found, under calibrated testing conditions, to fly at substantially the same height and distance, and remain in flight for substantially the same period of time, regardless of how it is placed on the tee. The testing conditions for assessing flight symmetry of a golf ball are provided in USGA-TPX3006, Revision 2.0.0, “Actual Launch Conditions Overall Distance and Symmetry Test Procedure (Phase II)”. Accordingly, conventional golf balls typically remain hemispherically identical with regard to the dimples thereon in order to maintain the required flight symmetry and performance.
As such, there has been little to no focus on the use of differing dimple geometry, dimple arrangements, and/or dimple counts on the opposing hemispheres of a golf ball-likely due to the previous inability to achieve volumetric equivalence between the opposing hemispheres and, thus, flight symmetry. Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for a golf ball that has opposing hemispheres that differ from one another in that the dimple shapes, dimple profiles, dimple arrangements, and/or dimple counts are not identical on both hemispheres, while still achieving flight symmetry and overall satisfactory flight performance.